One huge aspect of stress is that it often brings on depression. When you get depressed or stressed out, you’ll find yourself frequently spending a great deal of time sedentary.

You’ll want to be alone and spend a lot more time in bed or on the couch. You’ll become lethargic and won’t want to go out and do things, because you’ll be more comfortable staying at home.

However, as comfortable as that might be, lethargy can have some serious long term effects on your mobility. Staying stagnant each passing day can cause your joints to deteriorate over time, meaning that as you grow older, your knees and elbows will start to function worse.

This can make it even harder to get out and be mobile, meaning that it’s a self-supporting cycle. By ceasing all activity, you’re forcing yourself into a cycle of inactivity in which you continue to let your body deteriorate over time.

You’ll find that simple tasks like walking up stairs or moving around in general are painful and more difficult than they were before. This can make you even more stressed and depressed, and make you move even less, only furthering the impact that it has on you.

The only way to prevent this is to remain active even through stressful times.

Moral Letters 104.6-7 states So you are curious to know the outcome of this prescription of travel? As soon as I escaped from the oppressive atmosphere of the city, and from that awful odour of reeking kitchens which, when in use, pour forth a ruinous mess of steam and soot, I perceived at once that my health was mending. And how much stronger do you think I felt when I reached my vineyards! Being, so to speak, let out to pasture, I regularly walked into my meals! So I am my old self again, feeling now no wavering languor in my system, and no sluggishness in my brain. I am beginning to work with all my energy. But the mere place avails little for this purpose, unless the mind is fully master of itself, and can, at its pleasure, find seclusion even in the midst of business.